Major Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota... Many Injuries/Deaths Feared

Originally posted by slicely
Anyone yelling terrorism at his point is WAY off base.

I live a few miles from the bridge and have seen daily the construction that is going on. The bridge was old...full of cars - there are FAR too many variables involved right now to say it was terrorism.

Please have respect for the situation and be reasonable with your calls. No one at this point has any idea what or why this happened and any speculation to terrorism is as relevant as someone saying that the aliens came down and blew the bridge out for fun.

Seriously. Grow up. Use your head.

Absolutely, I completely agree. I drove home over the 94w bridge (close bridge also crossing the Mississippi) about an hour before this occured, traffic was horrible there too. While I understand this is an alternitive topics website, as a Minnesotan and a person living in the area I quite frankly find the rush to blame terrorism or Islam or even "black ops" very offensive. quite frankly it reflects poorly on those posting that crap. Seriously, "Black Ops"?!! give me a break. Accidents happen people. Some of your fellow human beings are dead. Its been said before but please grow up and have some respect.

The reason we do road construction during rush hour is because there is a lot of work to be done to our roads due to our harsh winters that take its toll on them. And we get only 5 months a year to really work on them.

Minnesota has two seasons: Winter and Road Construction.

It wasn't the construction crews fault, resurfacing (filling pot-holes and repaving) doesn't bring a bridge down. They were not drilling piling or anything, just laying some blacktop.

So don't make the construction crew out to be your personal terrorist.

This IS a conspiracy website, if you do not want to see people shouting terrorism, perhaps this is not the site to be reading about such events. It is not irresponsible to think terrorism, it is a theory being presented by individuals. Just like the theories saying it was an accident or human error. Anyone giving reason for the collapse is stating nothing more than their personal perspective. Please do not dismiss any of them just because you may not want to hear it. Many people will think terrorism when something, anything happens because that is the times we live in.

Originally posted by TarvisK
So don't make the construction crew out to be your personal terrorist.

Excuse me? Just what do you mean, "So don't make the construction crew out to be your personal terrorist"???

Who mentioned terrorism? Not I.

Don't be such a wise-arse.

Almost all of my relatives and some of my friends from my"Minnesota" days live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.

I spent part of tonight making sure all were accounted for, with some success.

Tomorrow, I'll go to work and listen to people comment about it. I've already prepared myself for some absurd and insensitive remarks. I don't think those people have ill intent-they are simply removed from any personal connection to it.

Just about everyone in Minnesota has traveled over that bridge. There is only one big metro area in Minnesota and THAT is it.

Hopefully, none of my friends or relatives were involved.

Thanks to all of you for your support. My heavy heart is with those ofyou in Minnesota tonight.

On a lighter side, Minneapolis has AWFUL traffic jams.

I live in Houston and witnessed first hand the Hurricane Rita traffic disaster.

This bridge won't be repaired in short time and I am interested in what the game plan is.

I expect traffic to be horrific tomorrow as motorists try to deal with the detours for the first time.

Originally posted by shots
MSNBC is saying Home land security says there is no I repeat no terrorist involvement. It is just a tragic accident. They stated witnesses say the crews were using jack hammers on the bridge surface and only 8 cars went into the river. One school bus loaded with kids had injuries but all got off alive and no numbers on injuries or possible deaths at this time.

Wow, that made me jump when I read "school bus loaded with kids" glad they are alright.... hopefully the injured recover, and the deaths change from 'no numbers' to '0'

My mom said something about a bridge collapse when I came home and saw the RSS scroll past my browser right as i sat down.

[edit on 8/1/0707 by Bumr055]

On a side note; just to let you know how reliable the news really is:

I heard about that school bus plunging into the river while seeing pictures of it sitting on what's left of the bridge.

As for that truck beside it that was burning, the replayed footage was reported as "live" until well after the sun went down.

But don't blame the desk reporters for that. The pictures are often newer then the written script, making these anchor people look stupid at best.

They are paid to read, not think.

Okay, that's not really true but it sure seemed that way tonight!

But this is normal in breaking news coverage.

If it was a terrorism thing, I am sure it would be happening all over the country atleast weekly. Minnesota just doesn't seem like the kind of place that some terrorist cell would chose on a map as the best target, unless they did the whole throwing the dart at the map thing. Any dumbass teenager with a pipebomb could have done this.....but it probobly just fell like everything eventually does.
If similar things happen around the country, I am sure that our great leaders will blame Iran for harboring said terrorists and the united states will invade.
I also feel bad or something.....sorry....not suicidal or anything.....I just look at death as something not to cry or feel sad about.

Originally posted by jsobecky
Rush hour construction?

I think we will find that the info elevatedone dug out is the main cause of the failure.

News reports said traffic was down to one lane during rush hour.

Why the hell were they doing construction during rush hour, instead of overnight, as is done in most major cities?

Amen brother Amen. I scream this notion almost everyday...its like they find work to do on purpose just to make us use more gas or somthing.
(now they do the sweeping all the time) or mowing or some stuff that seems to have no reason whatsover.
Bring the D.O.T. up on criminal charges.
Like someone else said about the condition of the infrastructure, I been noticing it and have been thinking, how can I trust this is safe??

If you really want to think about it, how about our highways served their purpose and arent seen as needed for the next step in whatever.
sprawl natural thing or implemented? maybe spread us out so we cant join together?

"Minnesota just doesn't seem like the kind of place that some terrorist cell would chose on a map as the best target, unless they did the whole throwing the dart at the map thing. "



It is a city of over 1 million people and has the "mall of america".

Ohh yeah...the Mall of America! Blowing that up would totally weaken our countries defenses allowing the terrorists to take us all over and impose their "muslim" rule on us! Run for the hills!

There is a thread about homeland security and some other credible source by the name of Juval Aviv stating that the terrorists want to hit small/rural towns as well as big cities just to prove that no place in America is safe. So if it was terrorism, which we know it's not, but if it was the size of the city is irrelavent, according to the latest info from homeland security.

Originally posted by ninthaxis
This IS a conspiracy website, if you do not want to see people shouting terrorism, perhaps this is not the site to be reading about such events. It is not irresponsible to think terrorism, it is a theory being presented by individuals. Just like the theories saying it was an accident or human error. Anyone giving reason for the collapse is stating nothing more than their personal perspective. Please do not dismiss any of them just because you may not want to hear it. Many people will think terrorism when something, anything happens because that is the times we live in.

Thats true, I guess I shouldnt expect much more here. I PERSONALLY feel that some theories can be harmful and damaging, especially when people shout them less than 4 hours after an tragidy like this happens. I feel that simply shouting "conspiricy!!!111one" after such a short time, without expressing any sadness for the victims of this incedent or even a shred of evidence pointing to anything more than a structural failure is not productive or worthwhile. The truth is that no one knows what happened yet but PERSONALLY, after seeing that bridge many times in person, I think that this is just a horrific accident and truth be told- there is not one SPECK of anything pointing to anything more sinister yet. It has only been about 5 hours since this happened. I'm simply stating that jumping the gun with all sorts of theories may not be prudant without any information.

EDIT: Terrorism was just ruled out- from Earthfiles (an alternitive topics website of all things) via KARE11 TV:

"The 500-foot-long span of bridge was 65 feet above the Mississippi River
where it collapsed into half a dozen sections. Eyewitnesses reported heavy jack hammer sounds from freeway resurfacing at the time the bridge gave way, but exact cause for destruction in 40-year-old steel and concrete bridge is unknown. Homeland Security has ruled out terrorism"

[edit on 1-8-2007 by andyzero1234]

"(filling pot-holes and repaving) doesn't bring a bridge down."


The theory is that if there was alot of traffic backed up...imagine all the wieght of the backed up traffic sending waves of vibrations.

[edit on 1-8-2007 by Mailman]

[edit on 1-8-2007 by Mailman]

New here to ATS...

My mom for the past 4-5 months has been having dreams about a bridge over the Mississippi River collapsing. She would tell me about this every week. Well she just called me crying saying that this was the exact bridge she had dreamed about. She is very upset to say the least. Now lately too she has been having dreams about something happening at airports. (She works at IAH in Houston) Weird stuff...

Thank God that the bus of school children did not plunge in the river. That is a miracle in itself!

It makes sense that it should occur when it did.

Look at it this way, if the frame of a bridge were to finally give way, at what time period would it be most likely to collapse?

A: No traffic, no movement.
B: Regular traffic.
C: Heavy rush hour traffic.
D: Heavy rush hour traffic, plus added weight of construction equipment.

Clearly the answer is D.

The bridge was destined to collapse eventually, the catalyst was simply the construction and the heavy traffic at once.

The answer? Clearly inspections weren't done adequately enough, or the inspection methods are leaving out something vital.


Engineers fault? No.
Construction crews fault? No.
Inspectors fault? Maybe.
Methods of maintenance and inspection? ABSOLUTELY.

This makes me wonder how old and faded our highway systems are? This makes me think of the Sanibel Island Bridge in Fort Myers that is being completely rebuilt because of mass erosion to the stantions - at some points they had to limit traffic because they felt it would not be safe should maximum rush hour be on it.

Indeed, much of the north just has the "two seasons". I spent ten years in Syracuse, NY, and completely agree with that.

I bet this will cause some sort of national scare/rush to check up on the safety of our road systems. Anyone wanna take a guess at the tax or toll hikes on the roads to really fix all of them?

Also interesting - a guest on The Coast to Coast radio show the other night said something about a major fault - the San Madrid i believe - becoming active in the near future, and it is somewhat close to the area. Although it clearly was not an earthquake because seismographs all over the place would have picked it up in 2 seconds, i just found it a strange coincidence.

Hope the death toll stays low - sure looks like it could have been worse.

[edit on 1-8-2007 by el_madmaster]

Originally posted by ninthaxis
This IS a conspiracy website, if you do not want to see people shouting terrorism, perhaps this is not the site to be reading about such events. It is not irresponsible to think terrorism, it is a theory being presented by individuals. Just like the theories saying it was an accident or human error. Anyone giving reason for the collapse is stating nothing more than their personal perspective. Please do not dismiss any of them just because you may not want to hear it. Many people will think terrorism when something, anything happens because that is the times we live in.

There is no evidence as of now to think it was terrorism. If you want to present a conspiracy theory, better have some evidence. As it stands now, the most likely answer isn't terrorism.

I also live near Minneapolis and yes it's been hot, but that's no reason for a bridge to collapse.

I live in Minnesota and have traveled the bridge many many times. It is too early to say what happened to this bridge...nobody knows, and if they do, there are other things at work. Structural engineers will study this collapse for decades to come. I have heard the arguments about the bridge being overloaded at rush hour. Bridges are not that precariously built; they have a huge safety margin before failure. Yes, they do fail, but when and where have you seen an entire bridge fail without something helping it along, such as an earthquake? Of all the failures I know that are random, like this one "appears" to be, only a section or two has fallen, not the entire bridge. No fault, blame, or exclusion should be rendered at this early time. They can't even get under the collapse yet, because of night and strong currents, yet the powers that be have already determined cause? Tragedy? Absolutely! Cause? To be determined!

Kinda pisses me off, watching MSNBC, it seems like the news casters are dying to claim "terrorists" themselves, asking leading questions, and pushing people for them to say terrorists.

It will be months before we hear what has happened officially.